song i wrote when i was 19 that i don't find cringey for some reason (Patreon)

(haters abound but the truth is that the ukulele is an affable and versatile instrument, perfect for hobbyists and beginners)

content warning for those with a phobia of narcissists: i am about to compare myself to myself...

i cringe at everything i wrote before age 25, as god intended. mercifully the time between publishing and cringing increases as i age and hopefully the things i'm writing now will be spared from my contemptuous spotlight but the pre-frontal-lobe-completion oeuvre exists in my mind as a minecraft oof.

but! when i was 19 i wrote a song called i don't mind. i first sang it here (i bet some of you saw this video on upload...shivers). and even though i should hate it i don't. as hard as i press down on its tooth...it isn't sore. there's pity, for the girl's obvious unhappiness, and her big sad cow eyes, but i like her song. the anomaly makes it worth examination. back then i was the ghost of my student flat, only venturing to the kitchen when everyone was somewhere else; i was the girlfriend of another child rendered emotionally impotent in the face of my complicated sadness, and i his; i lost new friends on purpose by being unresponsive, without understanding why. myriad social miseries followed me from room to room, little life to little life, until i understood, ah, that i'd been the social misery all along. that's what the song's about. all very undiagnosed autism, yes?

why don't i hate it? dunno. i don't remember trying to do anything with the lyrics. not trying to sound clever, i mean, or more worldly, except when i used the word 'amphetamines'; friendless nineteen-year-old me, had, surprise, not done speed(?). otherwise it's unexaggerated unembellished lived experience. my parents were very worried about me around then and i was so frustrated with them for it, couldn't understand why...look at me! but this melancholy was a usual variation of a natural state. my emotional calibration was off. i was totally devoid of self knowledge, direction. a cool pool of water on an even cooler day indeed. poor rascal. 

so many differences! my voice is more cursive in the original (and better for it? i think my singing's not so good now (+ is transposed down a key)). my 2024 body is so much looser; when i noticed this it made my stiffness in the original look crazy, like, unclench, unclench! the 2015 take was one of many, many, many and the 2024 take was my first sing all the way through. there's the obvious difference in how the videos look, and what's around me – in 2015 my room was decorated with halloween caution tape and empty bottles of apple sourz, and now it's, uh, not. and i don't know if i'm just projecting the story i've told myself onto myself but i can see in the most recent take that the feeling from the song does live in me but is just being remembered...

anyway the aaaa bbbb rhyme scheme is kind of insane. the honesty is good. honest enough to let me time travel immediately to that place, which makes it precious, and makes me feel very soft and motherly(?) towards my past self. i'm grateful to have the song. singing it made me sad. 

sav x

(p.s. in other news! new video will be ready tomorrow night i think, which is, like, incredibly on schedule for me. i will do my best for you)